The One Time Hypno-Hustler Actually Tried To Help Spider-Man In The Comics
In today's climate of an evidently unceasing audience appetite for comic book superhero adaptations on both the big and small screens, you never know when a character that was once an obscurity — even among comic book readers — will become a pop culture icon. Imagine telling a Marvel Comics fan back before the first "Guardians of the Galaxy" movie that one day everyone in the world would know the name and entire backstory of Groot.
Could that one day happen for the Hypno-Hustler? It's entirely possible as Donald Glover is reportedly set to star as the Hypno-Hustler in an upcoming Sony Spider-Man universe project. It's safe to say that most of the film's eventual viewers will be getting their first glimpse of the character in that incarnation.
However, this won't be the first time the Hypno-Hustler was brought back from his 1970s supervillain obscurity. In a Spider-Man comic book miniseries in 2006, the Hypno-Hustler was brought back for one last hurrah, and in the process, he was actually aligned with Spider-Man rather than trying to hypno-hustle him for his own nefarious ends.
He tried to redeem himself in Spider-Man: Reign
The miniseries is "Spider-Man: Reign," which takes place in an alternate future 30 years beyond the heyday of Spider-Man and his rogues' gallery. Comic Book Resources describes it as "one of the most controversial comics featuring the Web-Slinger," and essentially an attempt to apply the approach of Frank Miller's seminal "The Dark Knight Returns" to the Spider-Man mythos.
The miniseries depicts plenty of Spider-Man's old foes as exactly that — old. Peter Parker himself also appears 30 years past the web-slinging glory days that make up the core Spider-Man canon. But what concerns us here is "the largely forgotten" Hypno-Hustler, who attempts to use his signature magic boombox to hypnotize the Reign, the story's dystopian government police force (via Comic Book Resources). Unfortunately, things do not go as planned and the Hypno-Huslter dies. The incident acts as a sort of late redemption for a character who was pretty much a punchline.
No one knows for sure what the plans are for Donald Glover's starring role as the Hypno-Hustler, but if the idea is for him to be a sympathetic antihero in the vein of Venom or Morbius, the character's solo outing might take a bit of inspiration from his appearance in "Spider-Man: Reign." Fans eager to see ol' Double-H enter a previously unimaginable level of supervillain stardom will just have to wait and see.